Where Did I Get This: Started Early, Took My Dog

I have no idea why I put Kate Atkinson's Started Early, Took My Dog: A Novel on my library hold shelf.  It's a popular book, so it's been on my hold list for months, but it's not the kind of book I ordinarily seek out, although I do like literary mysteries such as P.D. James's books.  I have a book challenge to read a magazine top pick, so I thought it was an Economist recommendation, but now I can't find it on their list.  Maybe it was a librarything zeitgeist winner for a while (another challenge)? I have no idea.

Anyway, it was a good book, with the mystery giving a chance to look at abused or lost children, building a family or having one torn apart, and relationships between parents and children while moving between people connected through Tracy Waterhouse, who grabs a chance at parenthood unexpectedly, and who watched a little boy disappear many years ago.  People tracing a lost child from that past intersect with her, as does an elderly actress drifting through dementia.  I found it rather grim, with a bit too much helplessness and despair among the hope and connections.  I think this is the fourth book about Jackson Brodie, whose story took a strong second place to Tracy's, but I read it as an independent novel.  The characters are mostly powerfully drawn, with the exception of Tilly, whose dementia seemed carefully crafted to suit the story.  

I recommend Atkinson's books to people who like mysteries that are real books, but I won't seek out more because she's too good at showing the cliff edge that many people are on in the midst of their lives. Too depressing for me right now.

Playing With Fire: Bad Prince Charlie

John Moore writes fantasies where the characters have all read Diana Wynne Jones' Tough Guide to Fantasyland, where princes and magicians are real but soothsayers may not be, where bureaucracy and evil aristocrats compete to strangle the realm, where eggs are banished from the kingdom but new coffee shops spring up on every corner.  They suffer a bit in characterization, and a dull mood can spoil the enjoyment, but in general Bad Prince Charlie gives a sharp dash of satire and self-mocking to an often over-worked genre.  Throw in a few excited footnotes and even some emergency awful blank verse and he's written a fun story that kept me entertained as I read it in dribs and drabs over several months.  I'll keep my eye out for more of his books.

Dead Men: Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates

Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein have a small schtick going -- they write popular philosophy books that rely heavily on jokes to illustrate the various theories they toss about.  I remember laughing during the previous book (Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar) so when I saw this one on the Interesting Shelf at the library I grabbed it.  It doesn't hurt that the pearl in the title makes it fit one of my long-lasting challenges.

Sadly, this book about the philosophy of death isn't as interesting. Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between uses the conceit of a conversation with dim neighbor Daryl to talk over various philosopher's theories of life, death, afterlife, and self, interposed with jokes and comments from more palatable experts such as Woody Allen.  I've seen most of the short quotes before, and didn't learn anything from the rather shallow discussions of Heidegger, Plato, or other big names brought in to impress.

The lack of laughter also meant I had time to notice how male-centric the authors were.  Their default human was aggressively male, with women appearing mostly as props.  People show up in heaven, and the women are there as sexual gifts, not as people who also died and went somewhere.  It was all on the level of "farmers and their wives" kind of things -- obviously the women aren't farmers, right?  It got irritating quickly, but then book was short so I didn't have time to get too cranky.  And I tried out a few of the jokes with my family and got some chuckles.  So a mild recommendation for people wanting to dip a toe into philosophy.

Cops and Demons, Working Together: Secrets of the Demon

Diana Rowland writes the fun kind of urban fantasy -- regular person with a regular job is trying to get along, but they have this other stuff. Angst level kept low, action level high.  In Secrets of the Demon (Kara Gillian, Book 3), Kara is working hard to make it as a cop in her small Louisiana town, but she makes time for her family hobby of summoning creatures (demons) from other dimensions.  This has led to complications.

Some of the complications come with benefits, as is traditional for female protagonists.  In the previous book Kara promised to bring over a major player, a Demon Lord, every month in return for the life of the man she's been considering as a boy friend.  MEANWHILE, There's a new case involving several murders and several petty crimes, all centered around a small group of people.  Kara and her task force (including the possible boy friend) work on figuring out how they connect while Kara also struggles with her relationship with the gorgeous creature she's been summoning.  The sex is great, but she's not sure whether she's just imagining a friendship growing as well.  And should she stop the great sex in case her human friend wants to move to the next level? Nothing too earth-shattering, but readable prose and a lack of pretension makes this a good book for a lazy afternoon or a relaxed vacation.  B

Magic Makes Things Less Magical: The High King of Montival

What happens to people and civilizations if we lose all our technology? S.M. Stirling likes that question, and has several series of books based around answering it. In the longest series, The Change, stuff just stops working and no one knows why, and his characters spend six books setting up new ways of living. At first things are very hard, with mass starvation and death, but as the books go on people learn new ways of coping and after twenty five years many people can't even remember what it was like "before."

Religion becomes much more important to people, who draw together and build myths and structures to bond their societies. So people pray to Odin and the Earth Mother and Raven and the Virgin Mary. Earlier books left open whether or not the prayers were answered, but in this book we know that Rudi, son of major characters of the first books, is super-magical. He's got the nifty magic sword to beat all swords, and everyone who glimpses it recognizes the power. So he can tell who is lying, and hack open just about anything, and seal off minds from the evil workings of the Evil Powers, and gosh, probably slice bread.

When his magic sword is off-stage, there are still interesting bits with people fighting and rushing about and doing stuff on their own, but things are much duller now that it isn't ingenuity and courage vs the world. I'll probably keep reading these, but not in any hurry when they come out, because a lot of the magic is gone now that the magic is there.  C-

Hey, it works for the What's In a Name Challenge -- "high" is a size!  OK, I don't regret the time spent reading this one.

Inadvertently Challenged Again: What's In a Name?

Again I'm signing up for a challenge that I hope does not involve any actual effort on my part.  I just like lists, especially checking things off them.  The What's in a Name challenge gives me a fun, arbitrary list, and one I hope just gets completed while I'm reading anyhow.  Why, I've probably practically finished the whole thing already!  Let's see what the six categories are this year:

1. A book with a number in the title: First to Die, Seven Up, Thirteen Reasons Why
• Aha, I knew this would be simple.  The Thirteenth Princess.
2. A book with jewelry or a gem in the title: Diamond Ruby, Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Opal Deception
• Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through those Pearly Gates, by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein
• Hmm.  I got nothing. (HA! Fixed that!)
3. A book with a size in the title: Wide Sargasso Sea, Small Wars, Little Bee
• High King of Montival, by S. M. Stirling.
4. A book with travel or movement in the title: Dead Witch Walking, Crawling with Zombies, Time Traveler's Wife
• Burndive, maybe? That's really weak.
• AHA!  Started Early, Took My Dog, by Kate Atkinson
5. A book with evil in the title: Bad Marie, Fallen, Wicked Love
• AHA! A better entry. Bad Prince Charlie, by John Moore
• AHA!  A real entry!  Secrets of the Demon, by Diana Rowland.
• I can't believe I'm empty here.  I read vampire books, for gosh sakes.  Troubled? dark? grey? all lame.  
• Happy Birthday, Bad Kitty, by Nick Bruel.  Although I believe this is an early reader book, so I may be cheating.
6. A book with a life stage in the title: No Country for Old Men, Brideshead Revisited, Bog Child
• I've got one!  Fueling the Teen Machine.  Also Spring Babies, but counting an early reader book feels like cheating.

Well, two (FOUR) out of six ain't bad, as the song would have said if it were talking about my progress on this challenge so far.  Hopefully the others will fall out of my reading tree without too much shaking.

In other challenge news, I've got three states done, 3/20 for 20/11, I've read four SF books, still have the Michigan book on the TBR shelf,  and read 7 Cybils.  No disasters yet.

Fairy Tales Can't Count: The Thirteenth Princess

Diane Zahler's The Thirteenth Princess retells the story of the twelve dancing princess, but adds an extra as our viewpoint character. The last princess incurred her father's wrath by being first, another girl, and unsurprisingly, one birth too far for the poor mother, who expired on the spot. So Zeta not only doesn't get an A-list name, she is also sent to the kitchen to grow up with the servants instead of among her pampered older siblings.

Luckily this gives her the chance to wander the forest and meet helpful witches and stable boys and soldiers, so when the twelve blond princesses -- our Zeta is a redhead -- start wasting mysteriously away, someone can go for help. I liked how pieces of the fairy tale stay unobtrusively; there is drugged hot chocolate to put Zeta to sleep, the trap-door in their room is a forgotten dumb-waiter that Zeta has been using to visit her sisters from the kitchen, the elder sister gets to marry a soldier (although he isn't quite grizzled, albeit for a twelve year old reading the book there probably isn't much difference between 27 and 63). Also, the princesses are trapped in a spell, not sneaking out in glee, and their dad has grown bitter over the years with the lack of an heir and the death of his wife, which even he has to admit was mostly his fault.

It's a fun retelling, not incredibly rich but not annoyingly shallow. I liked how Zeta didn't put on trousers and start swinging a sword; she's a good cook and determined to save her sisters but isn't magically perfectly brave and heroic. This book inspires me to consider the A-Z challenge again, because look -- a Z author!  B

Cybil One: Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa

My first Cybils book was from the Early Reader Category: Erica Silverman's Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa Spring Babies, with illustrations by Betsy Lewin. This is the sixth book about these hardworking friends, but my first.

It was cute, but nothing really shone for me.  The girl and her horse work nicely together, the Kate keeping them focused while Cocoa prefers a little extra snoozing.  Cocoa was deeply suspicious of Kate's new puppy, reacting as a typical literary older sibling with jealousy instead of anticipation, but he quickly got over it and the world was nice again.  The pictures were nice but not memorable; I have a much clearer vision of the cows in Lewin's Click Clack Moo from last year than the horse of last night.

My sixth grader thought it was probably all right for little kids; he read the whole thing when I left it on the breakfast table. My fourth grader has been very tired at reading time lately; he can't keep his eyes open for more than one chapter, so clearly it's not gripping him.  Cowgirl Kate has not replaced Mr Putter in our hearts (that sentence will only make sense to Early Reader readers).

Disclaimer: For the Cybils Challenge, I'm trying to link my Amazon through the Cybils page, not my Amazon account.  If it works, and someone actually buys something, I think the miniscule kickback goes to them.  As far as I know no one has ever bought something through me, but Amazon lives in hope and continues to provide me with easy links.

I'm Hungry: Fueling the Teen Machine

Although the information in Fueling the Teen Machine, by Ellen Shanley and Colleen Thompson is solid, I didn't get a good sense of the intended audience. It seemed a bit condescending towards actual teenagers; I would have found it childish as a high schooler. My son is in middle school now, and not motivated to eat well. This book wouldn't help with that motivation, although for teens coming in strongly motivated it provides good information. I may leave it around for him; I'm not sure it has information he doesn't know, but maybe seeing the same facts again might eventually force him to believe that truth also applies to him. My dinner tonight? Chicken & corn in a tortilla. His dinner? Well, you can't count the bite of chicken he didn't eat, but he did eventually melt some cheese onto the chips we had on the side.

My favorite part of the book was the recipes in the back. Nothing fancy, but when cooking for my kids (or having them cook for me) I don't want fancy; I want simple and good tasting. I tried one last night, and was pleasantly surprised (I'm always surprised when something I cook tastes good). The almost-teenager wouldn't eat it, but his elementary school brother finished up a bowl of bean and corn chowder.

I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers program on LibraryThing.

Another Challenge -- What's In a Name

I've found another challenge I want to sign up for, since I finished a few. Some of them I mentioned, and others I didn't, because I've fallen a bit behind. A bit. Cough cough. I blame No-Screens Week, because otherwise I'd have to blame myself. Back to the challenge.

The What's In a Name Challenge posts six categories, and you find books to fit each one. I'm planning to just read along and hope to accidentally hit them all, and if not I'll frantically search in November and December to fill out the holes. I like this plan because I've already hit a few books-in-one, and I've had my eye on this challenge because of those books. The six categories are:

1. Food. The title of the book mentions a food. I read Banana Heart Summer, by Merlinda Bobis. I guess I should get around to reviewing it so it will count. I could use Tentacles, which is about hunting giant squid (yum, endless calamari), but that is cheating and anyway I didn't review that one either. I'll get something up so I can check this off.
2. Body of Water. I first saw this abbreviated as "water" so I was planning on using Rain Is Not My Indian Name, but I guess not. Although Beth F, who hosts the challenge, used "waves." To avoid controversy, I will substitute Gary Paulsen's Caught By the Sea. Although I should promote it from a paragraph in a catch-up post to a review.
3. Title, such as President or Queen. Such as, Conspiracy of Kings, by Megan Whalen Turner. Or Someday My Prince Will Come, mentioned in that catch-up post.
4. Plant. Chalice of Roses, the romance anthology, fits nicely. It's in that catch-up post too.
5. Place Name. Still missing!
6. Music Term. When I read Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro, I knew I would do this challenge. It seems to be in that giant catch-up post too. I see a trend here.

Clearly the challenge for me here is in actually writing some reviews. I shall try! Thanks for a fun challenge, Beth F!